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Message Monday: Free Career Advice

You know that feeling when you sign into OKC on a Sunday night (after a weekend of “swearing off online dating”) and see that you have 15 new messages? In the early days I called that feeling “hope,” because I believed that each of these messages would be from a nice, normal, cute guy who could potentially be my husband or at the very least, my jump-off.

However, after about one month I learned the cruel truth about the message to viable date ratio. Of the 15 messages you get each weekend, three will be from murders who aren’t even trying to hide the fact they are trying to murder you. Six will be some version of “hi hwo are u sexy grl? Free 2nit?”. Three will be from guys whose usernames are some combination of the words “dragon” and “daddy.” Three messages will be normal, and if you’re lucky, one will be from someone who you *might* be attracted to and have something in common with.

I’ve also learned that, apparently, men also message women on OKC for reasons other than wanting a date or even a lil something something. For example, I got a very promising message from a guy that read:

What a great intro message! Personalized (I love the League/TV), to the point, and somewhat funny! I took a look at this guy’s profile so I could craft a witty reply. It was pretty basic, except for this detail:

Now, those who know me know I love giving advice, even when I know NOTHING about the topic. So, I replied to him:

(I realize now I made a grammatical error, which I would totally judge someone for #languagesnob, so I apologize to the readers who caught that and are shaking their heads at my sloppiness and/or hypocrisy.)

But preposition mix-ups didn’t seem to bother this guy (probably because he was overcome with my wit and beauty). He responded:

Where I come from, we would officially call this bantering. And, we all know that bantering —> -love —> marriage —> babies —> co-writing our own sitcom about being a modern day couple balancing love, family, and work. (Preferably staring either Tina, Amy, or Mindy, of course). Eager to get started writing the pilot episode, I replied:

While I was busy congratulating myself on my candid, hilarious, honest response, I got the following reply:

Huh? That’s it? No, “can I have your number?” No, “would you like to grab a drink sometime?” Not even a follow-up question, like “what do you do when you’re not watching Law and Order?” NADA. NOTHING.

I understand I could have continued the conversation myself if I was DYING to go out with this guy. But I just got the sense he was more interested in getting career advice from a random stranger than actually asking me out. YOU’RE WELCOME, M, FOR THE ADVICE. Please know that if I ever hear about your successful career on the news I am going to stand at your doorstep trying to take some money/credit from you, all the while shouting, “We want pre-nup” or something equally insane.

Meanwhile, everyone else can just call me the Sheryl Sandberg of OkCupid, since apparently my purpose here is to give career advice. Lean. In.